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Incident 1065: Scammers Allegedly Use AI-Generated Avatars to Impersonate Friends in Houston, Texas and Solicit Money

Description: Two Houston women reported being targeted in an alleged scam involving AI-generated videos that appeared to depict trusted friends. The purported deepfake avatars were reportedly used via social media and messaging apps to solicit access codes and promote fraudulent sales. Victims are reported to have lost control of their accounts, and friends of the impersonated individuals sent money believing the videos were authentic.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: First public report (that was found) appeared on 09/23/2024; underlying scam likely occurred days or weeks earlier. This incident was added to the database on 05/17/2025.

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Alleged: Unknown deepfake technology developer and Unknown voice cloning technology developer developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers and Unknown fraudsters, which harmed Stacey Svegliato , Sara Sandlin , General public and General public in Houston.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology , Unknown voice cloning technology and Social media platforms

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1065
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-09-23
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
Houston women scammed by AI-Generated deepfake videos
Houston women scammed by AI-Generated deepfake videos

Houston women scammed by AI-Generated deepfake videos

fox26houston.com

Houston women scammed by AI-Generated deepfake videos
fox26houston.com · 2024

HOUSTON - We've been warning you for a while now that scammers can use Artificial Intelligence to create fake videos and con people out of money. But could you spot a deepfake video if it looks just like one of your friends?

Two Houston are…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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